Creative Grouping Can Promote Critical Thinking

Creative grouping can maximize instructional time
for Common Core standards. Having
students organize themselves using criteria from the Common Core can be an effective
way to promote critical thinking.

HOW IT WORKS

Algebra is now included in the Common Core for sixth grade
math, which I love because I taught Algebra I in eighth grade for over 20
years. The challenge for me has been how to fit it all in and find ways to make
abstract ideas more concrete for younger students.

I first used this creative grouping strategy to introduce the notion
of simplifying algebraic expressions by combining like terms. I cut in half the
4 x 6 index cards we use for our math word wall
words and wrote an algebraic term on each card. Because there are eight tables in my room I
created 8 sets of 3 like terms to accommodate groups of three students at each table.

I handed each student a term as they entered the room,
telling them to get into groups with their “like terms.”

What happened next was amazing. I stood and watched as they immediately began
looking for their partners. They were talking about math, processing
information, classifying, and organizing from the minute they entered the room.

By the end of the day, I had witnessed the same thing in all
four math classes. Students sat with their “like terms” that day and had the
opportunity to work with students other than those in their regular support
groups. They seemed to enjoy the change - so much so that I decided to use the
creative grouping strategy to highlight other concepts as well.

Equivalent measurements – Example: 36 inches, 3 feet, 1 yard

Equivalent fractions –Example: ½, 3/6, 4/8

Percent/decimal/fraction – Example: .4, 40%, 40/100

This idea could be particularly well adapted to language
arts and reading. Students could group themselves by:

Beginning/ending sounds

Parts of speech

Rhyming words

Prefixes/suffixes

Synonyms/antonyms

GROUP SIZE

The size of student groups will be determined by factors
such as class size, room size, type of activity, and available furniture and
equipment. The daily cooperative
learning groups in my current classroom consist of three students because
of the size and number of the round tables in my room. When I had 35 students
in a small eighth grade classroom, we worked in groups of four because it was
the only way I could fit them all in there!

The Early Years

Teacher Talk

The first year after I converted from desks and rows to group work, I was absolutely stunned at the improvement my kids showed on their standardized test in the area of vocabulary development.Their scores soared!

It had not occurred to me that students would learn so many words from each other! What happened was that they gleaned new words from each student with whom they worked that year, and my goal was for every student to work with every other student in a group at least once during the year.

They also reported to me that they made more friends that year than in any year previously. According to them, they talked to people they would not ordinarily have talked to, and when they got to know them, they found that they were not so different after all.

I learned more than my students did that year, and I never went back to desks and rows.